She wakes him, shaking from a nightmare. Things are coming back to her. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes too much. She tells him about a dark room and a man filled with hate. Cook winces. She says Freddie and they both start to cry.
They know what happened. They don't want to. They don't want to know that. But they had to. They needed to see.
Cook snuck them in to the scene of the crime, ducking under police tape, in the middle of the night. They stared at the blood spatters and felt sick, holding hands so tightly that their nails left half moons in each other's hands. They needed to be there, where it ended.
"Close the door." Effy said, and Cook did, pulling his shirt up to cover his hand so he wouldn't leave prints.
She said she could hear him screaming in her head. He didn't respond. He couldn't. He cried and cried until he couldn't breathe. Effy shoved him backwards out of the room, trying to ignore the way he was gasping. "Run." She said, and they did, and they didn't stop until they couldn't see the house anymore.
When they stopped, he threw up and once he'd caught his breath and looked round, he saw that she was holding her hair back and hunched over too, vomiting. They were still holding hands. They were afraid to let go.
They share a bed. It's not about sex. They're grieving, mourning their loss, their love.
Effy has a new therapist, a female doctor. Anthea met her first, spent hours and hours researching her methods and credentials, then hours and hours talking to her. They all feel guilty.
She takes Cook with her, when she has appointments. She holds his hand the whole time. He doesn't speak, but he doesn't need to. He's there so she doesn't have to be alone. As long as he's with her, he doesn't have to be alone either.
